A Murder of Clones: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page B

pushed. Then they stood for just a moment, as if they had never seen the area before.
    A loud bang made them jump. Then they all ran in the same direction. The camera floated above them, keeping the same distance, following them as they moved. Another image bifurcated from the first, keeping a vigil on the enclave.
    Gomez realized that the Eaufasse probably had years of footage from that enclave. She felt a mixture of relief and exasperation. Relief, because she would be able to see what had happened in this place from the very beginning. Exasperation, because she would have to investigate all of this with her team, and it would take time. No matter how sophisticated a computer program she set up to cope with all of this, she would still have to review some of the footage in person. She wouldn’t know what she was looking for until she found it.
    Then a third image split off from the other two. One of the boys left the group. Instead of running blindly through the underbrush, this boy stopped and surveyed his surroundings. He no longer seemed nervous.
    She backed the images up, going to the moment he first appeared. He remained slightly behind the other three as they stumbled out of the enclave. She hadn’t been able to see his facial expression. She had assumed he had reacted the same way the others had.
    She moved the images forward to the moment he had left the other three boys. As he walked away—calmly, slowly—he touched the plants. They shivered into place, as if no one had passed through.
    Her breath caught. How had he known to do that? The others seemed confused by the area away from the enclave, but he had a calm familiarity with it.
    The others continued forward, eventually growing tired and beginning to walk. By then, the other boy had gone very far in a completely different direction. Gomez cursed herself. She should have opened another program so that she could see where, exactly, all four boys were on the map of Epriccom. But she hadn’t done that. She could either go back and start over, or she could continue to watch.
    A sound behind her made her start. The door opened. Uzven entered. It adjusted its mask.
    “You have footage for me?” it asked.
    She nodded, and stopped the visual she was watching. Uzven did not ask about the boys, and she was glad of that. It sat down next to her, folding its twig-like body into what seemed like an uncomfortable position.
    She started up the images of the surviving boy and the four Eaufasse. She played the imagery with the sound until the boy answered the Eaufasse.
    Then she paused it.
    “Is he speaking Fasse?” she asked.
    “Yes.” Uzven’s tone was flat, even for a Peyti. It put its long fingers against its mask, adjusting again. A nervous habit, then. She wouldn’t have believed that the Peyti allowed themselves such gestures. She thought all Peyti too controlled for that.
    “What’s he saying?” she asked.
    “I—he’s asking for asylum,” Uzven said.
    “They spoke first,” she said.
    “They want to know his name.”
    “And he didn’t tell them?”
    “He asked for asylum first,” Uzven said.
    Her heart pounded. “That was his word? ‘Asylum’? He specifically asked for asylum from what?”
    Uzven did not move. She let the images run a bit more, the sounds surrounding her, then she stopped it again.
    “Uzven,” she said. “What did he ask for?”
    Uzven sat still.
    “Why aren’t you telling me?” she asked.
    Uzven’s mask made a large sucking sound. She turned toward it, afraid that it was suffering from mask failure. Instead, its hand dropped and its fingers played along the edge of the table.
    “He is fluent,” Uzven said quietly. “I am not.”
    “What did he say?” she asked again.
    “He asked for protection,” Uzven said. “He needed a promise of protection and safety before he would tell them anything.”
    “Protection and safety,” she said. “You’re sure?’
    “No, I’m not sure,” Uzven said. “I would need to